Buscando Trabajo: Day Three

Being between jobs sucks. Even if you're the type of person who saves every dime and sooner parts with a pint of blood than with a dollar bill, it sucks. Without work, you can't plan. You can't pay bills. You can't relax. You can't help thinking in terms of worst-case scenarios, and you can't help but wonder how long it'll take to find another job and whether or not said job will suck even worse than the last one.

I'm hoping my amiga C____* finds a job soon. But so far the news is not inspiring.

Even worse are the signs of false hope. For example, on the first day of her job search, mi amiga just happened to see a sign on a gate marked “Now Hiring.” Just the type of news she could use, right?

Alas, the place that belonged to that gate was not itself hiring. Just the company that owned that place. And the job openings that were available weren't likely to be in that location.

Job searches suck worse when you don't own a car. Like many cities, Dallas has little provision for public transportation. We have a bus system and a light rail system. But that's it. And even those systems don't go everywhere.

In any event, most companies that are likely to be hiring are not likely to be located in a place that can be reached by bus or light rail. You have to have a car to get there, and if you're too poor to own a car, well, tough luck.

Part of my problem with online applications is that they have a similar problem. If you don't have a computer and an internet modem, the only way you can apply at most companies is to go to the local library and use its internet system. However, this is not always a realistic option for most people. After all, many people live blocks away from a library and don't own a car. Nor do they always have a library card -- and most libraries won't permit non-card users to use their internet system. And if they do, such internet access rarely lasts long enough to enable the would-be applicant to make more than one or two job applications. And that's assuming the companies they're applying at don't have glitches in their software that make applying next to impossible.

I always thought that the Internet revolution was supposed to make life better for the average person. But then I guess that depends on one's definition of “average person”...

* Not her real name.